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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31690 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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Did the left disapprove of the methods behind Kirk's removal? (No.)

What are you talking about? Authority figures on the left universally condemned his assassination. Just 20% of Democrats think his death was justified. https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/justifying-murder/

Literally Dems shouted down a house proposal to honor Kirk (was merely symbolic). Ilhan Omar didn’t condemn — she in so may words said he had it coming.

It just isn’t true what you are saying. A lot of Dem politicians said something to the effective of “Kirk shouldn’t have have been shot BUT he was a bad dude.” That isn’t really condemning it (the but matters more) but gives enough for a post like yours allowing you to claim the dems decried it.

Literally Dems shouted down a house proposal to honor Kirk (was merely symbolic). Ilhan Omar didn’t condemn — she in so may words said he had it coming.

No they didn't. I remember this controversy. They honored him but rejected doing a prayer afterwards.

I believe this is the first thing Omar posted about it, and the only statement the day he died:

https://x.com/IlhanMN/status/1965866576206508255

I think this example is basically similar to that of every dem politician and prominent figure, I'm open to counter-examples.

I don't really know what you're asking for. That people lie and pretend they think Kirk was a good person or a positive force in the world for some unspecified period after he died, while the right gets to hagiographize him?

Yes that is generally the bare minimum of polite political discourse. The Overton window of Western democracy is quite narrow and acting like your ideological opponents are literally grand evil is not productive in the long-term.

I too wish we had more polite political discourse, I agree it isn't polite to be criticizing Kirk a couple of days after he died. I also think that many on the left genuinely see Trump and his cronies as the grand evil, it isn't an act. That's not really what this thread is about though.

I think that there is an extremely high level of agreement on the left that Kirk's death was both bad in its impact on the world and unjustified based on Kirk's actions. I think it's really irrational to read between the lines that the left don't "disapprove of the methods behind Kirk's removal" when this is directly contrary to all public statements and even on a private survey of random people you can only get 20% to agree that it was justified.

I think that there is an extremely high level of agreement on the left that Kirk's death was both bad in its impact on the world and unjustified based on Kirk's actions.

This very much doesn't match my experience. The most visible and highest-level politicians on the left spoke against it, mostly. The rank and file were revolting, and that includes people in real life in red states, and some close enough to me that I'd worked with them on volunteer projects or let them live in my house.

I think there is something really perverse about how social media shapes discussions, namely that people are often reacting to something, but the thing that they are reacting to isn't explicit. So what happens is a bunch of rights post extremely positive things about Kirk after his death. Then lefts see that and are like "what the hell, this is a bunch of bullshit", and post what they think about Kirk, to (in their view) correct the record. Then a bunch of other rights see that and are like "why are you saying this stuff, why can't you just condemn the violence and leave it at that?", not realizing that these statements are in reaction to statements by other rights. And so on. This is mostly not anyone's fault and happens on both sides every day.

That is to say that, while statements that take the form "It's bad that Kirk was shot, and also he was a bad person/contributed to the climate that made this happen" may be unwise, unkind, unproductive etc., I think it is completely reasonable to take them at face value, as in these people genuinely do believe it's bad that Kirk was shot.

That said, I can't speak to your personal experiences, but:

  • The article you linked about Congress includes four things that Dems said. Three are people blaming guns/Republicans for the shooting. Whatever you think about this argument, it certainly implies that they think the shooting was bad. The fourth is someone pointing out that prayer in Congress is not something that is ever done.
  • Everything else you include seems consistent with the poll I posted above, that ~30% of Democrats under 30 think the shotting was justified. That's pretty damn bad. But it still leaves the large majority of the left on the other side. You could dispute whether my "extremely high level of agreement" is a reasonable way to frame it, I'm not going to die on that hill. But what I see is pretty strong evidence that most on the left would prefer Kirk hadn't been shot.

The Overton window of Western democracy is quite narrow and acting like your ideological opponents are literally grand evil is not productive in the long-term.

It has worked for the left.

Has it?

"Just"???

It's roughly the number of people who will give the most trollishly partisan answer to a poll question regardless of what they actually think. Scott Alexander's post on the Lizardman constant in polling says 13% of Americans, including 5% of Democrats (so c. 21% of Republicans by elimination) told pollsters that they thought Obama was the antichrist - which was not a popular anti-Obama conspiracy theory at the time. Of course the 21% includes 4-5% of lizardman responders who are in effect engaged in for-the-lulz nonpartisan trolling. But "15% of respondents use polls for partisan trolling on top of the lizardmen" is pretty much correct.

Unless you think "Republicans who are so deep into politically-driven heresy that they think their political opponents are the literal antichrist" are a problematic group, I would treat "Democrats who support the Charlie Kirk assassination" with the same skepticism.

Composition matters. The 20% was a lot smaller amongst older dems; a lot higher amongst younger dems. Lizard man constant breaks down when you disaggregate the polling.

If you think that's high, you may have an overly rose tinted view of humanity.

Ok, I'll bite, what did the polls say about the victims of past assassinations? Did 20% of Republicans say "Kennedy had it coming" after he got shot?

I couldn't find any polls for that or any other historical assassinations. But 20% is about the number of Americans who claim to believe there are microchips in the COVID vaccine.

And the hardcore conspiracy theorists are a non-negligible percent, although ‘microchips in thé vaccine’ may not be 100% literal all the time.

Why are you comparing a highly divisive provocateur to a president like Kennedy?

Also I think opinions are more polarized now than back then. There's possibly less expectation of dignity now.

Is it your belief that Kennedy was not divisive? He was a papist!

Why are you comparing a highly divisive provocateur to a president like Kennedy?

I'd say killing someone who's main job is talking on college campuses is, if anything, more egregious than killing a president or a politician.

Also I think opinions are more polarized now than back then. There's possibly less expectation of dignity now.

Yeah, that would be my point.

I'd say killing someone who's main job is talking on college campuses is, if anything, more egregious than killing a president or a politician.

I disagree completely.

And this is why FCFromSSC is right; there is no way for this situation to be resolved other than violence, and lots of it. Talking won't work; it is just met with violence, and considered justified.

What on earth are you on about? I haven't said it was okay to kill Kirk. I just think it's a lot worse to kill an elected leader.

Malcolm X did.

I was under the impression that hew was a fringe radical at the time, and didn't come close to representing the views of 20% of either of the major parties.

Sorry, I didn't mean that as a refutation, more as a 'people did, but not from where one might expect'.

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